Lemons May 16 1984 (Primary Title)
Lemons (Alternate Title)
Donald Sultan, American, born 1951 (Artist)
“My work is a blending of process and imagery . . . There’s a lot to question: Is this shape solid? Is it space? What is it really about? There’s a filling in of sexuality and there’s also trying to make the image very real." —Donald Sultan
Sultan began painting lemons in 1983, inspired by painters Zurburán, Velázquez, and Manet. Here the yellow forms merge into a pyramid of sensually swelling ovals with nippled ends. The faint trace of a plate locates them against the dark ground.
Sultan made this massive still life in four separate sections, covering each plywood sheet with Masonite, vinyl tile, and butyl rubber, a roofing material. He drew the image over this built-up surface, then removed the positive shapes, refilled the space with plaster and, finally, painted. The balance Sultan strikes between abstraction and representation and figure and ground makes simple subjects and banal materials monumental and thoroughly contemporary.
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